Buy with 1-Click Independent Contracting and Migrant Workers in China’s Last-Mile Delivery
CHAN Jenny, 2023
Name of publisher/editor
EILEEN BORIS, HEIDI GOTTFRIED, JULIE GREENE & JOO-CHEONG THAM
Geographic area
Asia
Summary & key words
This article analyzes labor informality in the Chinese platform economy. Drawing on participant observation at a parcel delivery station in Beijing, the author discusses how individual and family lives are impacted by the hectic world of logistics work, and indeed, how companies have increased cost competitiveness through driving exploitation into forms hidden within the household. Migrant family members frequently assist each other by calling customers and wrapping parcels while their unpaid labor is subsidizing the company’s business operations. Although the spheres of production and social reproduction can sometimes be integrated in cities, they confront precarious work and unequal urban citizenship.